Disney and Fox: The pros of a potential deal for Marvel
If Disney and Fox reach a deal, how can this benefit Marvel?
For quite some time now there have been discussions between Fox Studios to sell its film rights over their Marvel characters to Walt Disney Pictures. It now appears the talks have restarted.
If this deal happens, what’s the positive outlook for Marvel?
Benefits of 20th Century Fox selling back to Marvel
Last year their parent company was operating in the red. 20th Century Fox managed to come in third out of the big seven movie studios, with barely a 13 percent share. Currently, they dropped a few points and are in fourth place this year. With that said, its clear Fox is not doing well at theaters and probably needs some additional cash. Marvel is already not helping given they get no free promotion from Marvel Comics. What I mean to entail is that since 2015 The Fantastic Four series is no longer being printed. In addition, the X-Men universe of titles, though vast, do not receive as much of a push from Marvel as their many other titles in promotional materials. Hence, selling to Walt Disney is the only way Marvel will ever help them out.
Fox has had plenty of wins with films like Logan, Deadpool and the original X-Men films under Bryan Singer. They have also had a few duds like X-Men Origins: Wolverine or their entire Fantastic Four franchise. Fox still holds the rights to the Fantastic Four for seven years unless a new film enters production. Clearly they do not know what do to with them, the numbers and scores show it. Fox could at least get some money back from selling, rather than having them revert back freely.
Benefits for Marvel
Marvel has had something of a fractured universe from the beginning with the lack of X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man until last year with Spider-Man’s debut in Captain America: Civil War. This has created some issues like changing the background on characters Quiksilver and Scarlet Witch, who originally are the children of Magneto. Its TV side already tried with Inhumans as a sort of replacement for X-Men and it failed.
Finally, Marvel can streamline all of their properties together and make so many fans dreams come true. Longtime fans can now see Hulk versus Wolverine or Reed Richards and Tony Stark duke it out scientifically. Spider-Man can trade jokes with Deadpool! Imagine a Secret Invasion!
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Disney would finally have consolidation all of their properties, much like Warner Bros. with their DC Comics properties. The only opponent on the market would be DC. Marvel would no longer need to strategize release dates by potentially worrying about X-Men or Deadpool pulling some business away. With less competition, they can further corner the market on comic-book movies. Plus, did I mention Secret Invasion?